Quirks New York Conference Flyover Day 1

Priscilla McKinney: This episode is brought to you by Multilingual Connections, longtime fan of the show, and an amazing partner. They weave culture, local dialects, and language together to convey deeper meaning and make more authentic connections. They provide language, translation, transcription, even in-country moderators for your market research when it goes global. Businesses who want to understand, engage, and grow multilingual audiences need a trusted partner who understand the complex cultural nuance and multilingual connections gets it? They are a human powered and tech driven global language partner providing. Unparalleled services. Check them out at multilingualconnections.com.

Hello and welcome to Ponderings from the Perch, the Little Bird Marketing Company podcast. This is a part of a special multi episode series. Covering each day of the Quirks New York event, whether you were walking the floors of this incredible gathering or watching from afar, this episode serves a dual purpose. If you attended, consider this your opportunity to expand the conversations you started and deepen the connections you made. If you couldn't make it, you're about to get an insider's view what we call our flyover. It'll be like a little birdie told you what happened at the conference.

Here we discuss persistent challenges in emerging trends that are shaping our industry. This isn't just a recap, it's your networking roadmap as we highlight the brilliant minds and companies making waves and market research. I want you to do something with this information. Connect with these professionals on LinkedIn, comment on their insights, share your perspective. Add value to the conversations that matter most in our field. We're all here to raise the bar for excellence in insights and marketing, and that happens when we actively engage with each other's work and ideas. The market research community thrives on collaboration, and I know a thing or two on that topic and the connections you make today could transform your approach to tomorrow.

As this is a part of a multi episode series, be sure to check out the show notes where we've highlighted the key players being interviewed here and provided the direct URL link to their LinkedIn profile. It makes it super easy to connect that connection. Could be just one LinkedIn message away. Before we jump in, I wanna thank our sponsor for making this episode possible. Their support allows us to bring you these industry insights and helps continue building bridges within the market research community.

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Priscilla McKinney: I have Xavier Vaissiere here and he's already presented this morning. So with Colgate-Palmolive, what did you have to share with the Quirks audience?

Xavier Vaissiere: So today we talked about how in the age of AI we need to be even more conversational in our research.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, so tell me a little bit more about that.

Xavier Vaissiere: So if you think of the way we see what I did there with that conversation. Well played. I mean the way we've been doing research is a lot of want a lot of bar charts, a lot of like scale, but we realized that to be interesting, be relevant, to be future proof, we need to become just better data driven storytellers and AI is an enabler to that. But at the end of it, the heart is people.

Priscilla McKinney: Well, I do notice that you're doing very well on the merch search here. Hands, you know, kudos to you. Good job. But in terms of your job and the challenges you're facing. Why come here? What are you listening for? What are you hoping to hear?

Xavier Vaissiere: I'm looking for inspiration. I think what's really, we see a lot of things, we see a lot of solutions, we see a lot of tools. I'm coming here to figure out how are other insights folks using them? How are they bringing it to life? How are they driving impact in their organizations?

Priscilla McKinney: I love that inspiration piece. Have you met anybody inspiring as of yet?

Xavier Vaissiere: I had a great first session this morning with Wreck-It where they talked about how they build a program for people centricity and really using everyone to be a moderator and an ambassador of the program. And I've been also talking with someone from Revlon to talk about how they build their own shopper capabilities.

Priscilla McKinney: Having exciting news and new and upcoming things on this podcast. You heard it here but I'm here with Tim Lawton from SightX. And you have something new coming up, video interviews. So tell me a little bit about that.

Tim Lawton: We do, we do, we do. As always, we're always working on something. But I think for us, kind of dipping our toes into more of a broader, yes, AI space, but also like bringing some of the more of the quality of it as well. We've gotten questions from our users about being able to offer these things that we just saw for us and where we're at in terms of with the product, the evolution. It just made perfect sense to now bring that type of feature on. So we're beta testing it now. We're launching live next month. And where we have a wait list for people to join already, but it's been, as of now, extremely well received, the term of conversations we're having, and building that wait list for people who want to join, or get the feature as an add-on when it gets released. I think it just brings so much more of a flavor and a depth and breadth to interviews to supplement a larger quant project, or just kind of a one-off on its own, more of a smaller niche, kind of qualitative review, but the analysis is going to be you know the the audio to text with sentiment and other phases of kind of Analysis that we're layering on after that too. So yeah, it's pretty exciting and you know for us to kind of keep expanding the offering of what we do in terms of use cases and in you clients that we we touch so Yeah, we're excited. It's been a busy year so far.

Priscilla McKinney: I love it and I love what I heard from that is that we listen to our users and this is what people need. So that's really great. Also, I'll do a podcast on podcast promotion is that your co-founder, Naira Musallam, was just on my podcast. So in the show notes, I'll actually link to that episode. It was absolutely fascinating. It was on my other podcast called Digital Transformation Success. But I mean, she was really talking about also that listening to clients and what other things SightX has developed because of that. But you live here in New York, so I got my local here. So what's something you think people miss when they come visit New York and then they don't do?

Tim Lawton: I think so I've living here for probably 15 years or so the thing that I always tell people to do I mean yes there's a towards the end if you only have a little bit of time yes there are like the big ticket items you got to do and I won't spend time listing all those but where I've loved in living and seeing a really completely different side in New York is really in the kind of the I'll call in the neighborhood years at least in Manhattan you know Soho West Village you know you mean East Village or something Tribeca where they're where I have lived and where people live where it's I'll say there's obviously tourists everywhere, but it's it's away from the you know the kind of the where everyone always goes type of stuff and it just gives you a different flavor of New York that's not Times Square.

Priscilla McKinney: I love it. Okay, I'm gonna tell you my little secret. I love going out to these different areas, but I usually find the park that is kind of in the middle of that neighborhood and then I kind of spiral out from it. So what do you think of my idea?

Tim Lawton: No, no, yeah, there's Washington Square Park. I love Washington Square Park. It's like so quintessential of New York, Madison Square Park, a little bit further than that, Union Square, obviously. And then, you know, there's some of those little smaller ones throughout like kind of West Village areas. get towards like meatpacking and stuff like that. yeah. Yeah. Tonight, are we heading to meatpacking? But I did sit out. We had lovely weather. I sat out at Bryant Park and they were doing movies in the park, which is really so interesting. Which is cool. having that sort of stuff and you it is in Central Park has it too. If you it's one of those where like there's always stuff to do in New York, but you have to just like look at me proactively of it. If you do, you can find stuff. Even after being living here for so long, like, really? I didn't know that was a thing. That's kind of cool.

Priscilla McKinney: I love it. Hey, people tune in to this podcast for all sorts of things.

Priscilla McKinney: Always wonderful to see Jill Kushner Bishop, PhD with Multilingual Connections. And first of all, thank you so much for sponsoring this podcast because you just give back to the industry quite a bit, whether it's women in research or it's supporting research. What's the other one? Sorry. Insights in Color. Have ever sponsored that? OK, I won't bring that one up. Or I'll say your local chapters. Or your local Insights Association chapters. I mean, I'm sitting here with a fellow laureate, so la-ti-da, we're so important. But I think there's a pressing question that a lot of people are saying, or if they're not saying it yet, they're thinking it, and that is, why can't I just get AI to translate this for me? So Jill, please set them straight. Why can you not do that quite yet?

Jill Kushner Bishop, PhD: Yes, well, the question has come up once or twice, an hour, but certainly AI is, of course, when you're translating from another language into English or a language that you can read, but when you're working from into multiple languages, if you're doing surveys in eight countries, you're doing discussion guide translations, you're doing transcription of really important nuanced audio, having an expert human eye makes all the difference.

Priscilla McKinney: You know, I'm going to bring this up. It might sound kind of elliptical, but I'm on this app with language learning. And as you know, I speak Spanish, but I've been out of it now enough years that I'm worried about my Spanish and so I've been doing this conversational app and it constantly comes back to me saying yes, technically you said it correctly, but that does not really sound right. That's not how someone would say it and I give myself away that I'm not really fluent and so it kind of begs that question. Well, that's just me hanging out with people, but what about when your actual company's reputation is on the line and let's say you don't get something that just sounds plunky. What if you just get it out and out wrong?

Jill Kushner Bishop, PhD: Absolutely, and that's the fear and that's the uncertainty you just don't know and so we are happy to edit AI outputs. A lot of our clients these days are coming to us and saying, hey can you clean this up? We can do more than clean up. We'd love to work earlier in the process and incorporate style guides and glossaries and make sure that the output is as good as possible before we have our humans edit it. But you need that human eye. You need to make sure that things aren't being lost and even if it's in your situation, you're a very fluent Spanish speaker, but you're right. Things have changed. Your language understanding has changed, language itself has changed, and then if you're working across regions, even with English, English for the US versus Canada, you give yourself away very quickly based on little things that you would never pay attention to, never know that you should pay attention to or could pay attention to, and that those give you away as not being from a place. And so if you're really trying to connect authentically with people, you wanna make sure that there are no red flags that are raised where it makes them wonder, do you really understand me?

Priscilla McKinney: Bother to have somebody who knows involved in this process. You said if you want people to connect with you authentically and the entire purpose of market research is to get people to connect with you authentically. So I think you know this is a good point is that you know who is translating your survey that is going global, who is translating your moderator's deck, who is your moderator. So tell me a little bit about moderation services because I think a lot of people don't know that you provide that in other languages.

Jill Bishop: Absolutely. It's a newer service and we used to do only the before and the after. We do the translation of the discussion guide, the transcription of the idea or the group afterwards and people would ask, can you do moderation? And I'd always say no. And then I realized there was no reason to say no, because we're in the business of finding people with the language and the cultural expertise and the right service ability. And so we have experienced market researchers in about 35 or 40 different countries who can come into a project. Sometimes it's just to moderate and leave if that's all our client needs. Sometimes it's for the whole workflow and analysis. Briefing report writing. So it's really about us filling the gaps that are on your team, but helping make sure that the people that you want to connect with and that you want to understand really have that opportunity in whichever language is more relevant to them. And somebody can understand the nuance and be able to probe in a way that if you're a language or a cultural outsider, you wouldn't necessarily know what's really being said behind those words or what's not being said. So having that expert in the room. Virtual or not can make all the difference.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah, that's super huge. So here at Quirks New York, is there something you're listening for or is there something that you've been kind of had a question mark about this industry or kind of curious what are people being faced with, you know, whether it's AI or just language or, know, heaven forbid that people are still thinking they should send their survey out around the world only in English.

Jill Bishop: Right. I actually was talking to somebody about that today and I joke that a puppy dies every time they agree to not translate for their clients. It's just so important. But I'm listening for anybody who's doing global work to understand how they're trying to do it more efficiently. Everybody's pressed on time and on budget, and so our job is to figure out what our clients need, not necessarily what we want them to want to do, because they might want more too, but then there's a reality of what projects and budgets will allow. And so we find out what they can do, and then we find ways of helping them get that done. So just about being efficient and creative.

Priscilla McKinney: Well I love that and I love seeing the Multilingual Connections team all around the world. Nice to see you you know kind of on our turf in the US but soon we'll be seeing you in Chicago at Insights Association and some of the other things that you've been sponsoring there. Yeah look up Jill and she's always so amenable. So many you know great pieces of advice she has from so many years of experience with language, with culture and just that nuance that beautiful nuance and that we know that that juicy stuff happens, that meaning behind the words, you know, and that is really what companies are looking for in order to get better brand impact. So I love it. Thanks Jill.

Jill Bishop: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Priscilla McKinney: Well in this interview you're going to get a little two for one because I have two people that I know and have been chatting with over the years. Jeff Whiteside and also Brandon Richard from The Link Group. We've had a lot of fun chatting this year about what clients are looking for, what they're saying. Can you give me any idea of just anything that's been surprising you or anything that's been new? What is really on the minds of your clients right now?

Jeff Whiteside: I think it's the continued theme of just faster, cheaper, quicker insights and how can we do that, get results basically by yesterday. And so it's that continued pressure and you can kind of see based on all the different booths here, all the different options that are allowing kind of a quicker realm, which for us as a full service agency, we're also trying to keep up with the timing and make sure that we're delivering quick quality of so with that human interaction, human intelligence piece. So it's really kind of merging all these different tools together to really make a authentic insights at the of the day.

Priscilla McKinney: Well, you are a full service insights group, but you also have a good connection to people who are coming from like just graduating and some pretty rigorous programs. And so I think you guys have a little bit of a finger on the pulse of what is possible. Like how can we make things a little bit different? And you mentioned Jeff, you know, faster, quicker, better, but I will say also agility needs to be really rigorous. So Brandon, What do you think about when you think about The Link Group team and really who's on it, why is that rigor able to be trusted?

Brandon Richard: I think it's because we just have people who been doing this for a long time. So a very low turnover. Most people have been here for five, 10, 15 years. And what that allows us to do is when we work in small teams, we can just be really agile. So we stay abreast of the new things that come about in the market. And then we marry that to the tried and true thing that we've been doing for a long time.

Priscilla McKinney: Really interesting time now because I'm looking around Quirks here and there's just so many new platforms and they're all really interesting and trying to figure out when is the right time to use all of these different tools is to me that's like the the new key that researchers need to be able to do is like there's so many things at our fingertips but when do we deploy each is the key.

Brandon Richard: Yeah that takes a lot of a lot of critical thinking and it does take experience I think that that is true maybe even a little bit of an open mind.

Priscilla McKinney: So just for fun, how about New York guys have anything you love to do in New York? You won't leave until you do what?

Brandon Richard: Well yesterday? First thing to do when I get it got in as I went for a run on the highline It was just a beautiful like 75 degree day with low humidity So that was the perfect New York afternoon for me, right? You're only gonna get one in your life. So good job getting out there.

Priscilla McKinney: What about you Jeff?

Jeff Whiteside: I've been on the streets heckling people to try to find fish tickets for Forest Hills So if you have any just let me know and I'll be gladly go to this evening.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, if I make that connection for you. Owe me man. Good.

Priscilla McKinney: Always so good to see Janeen Hazel from Luth Research here. I love, I love all the conversations we've had over the years, but I come to you when I want to know what is the pain, what brands are feeling right now. You and I just listened to an interesting session here at Quirks about a brand wondering what their consumer is doing online because there's this say do gap as we know. People say they do this, but then they go on in line and do something else. But Luth Research has a finger on on the pulse of what's going on here. So tell me what you're thinking when you hear that over and over again, that brands are like scratching their heads. What are people doing online versus what they say they're doing online?

Janeen Hazel: Yes. And we've talked about this many, many times over the last couple of years, but it's still so important that people say they do this, but they do something else online. And if you don't mirror both of them together, you're not getting the full picture. It's also making sure that you are have real people. That you're talking to, getting that digital behavior along with what they say and do. And we can mirror both of those together to give you exactly what is happening in your market.

Priscilla McKinney: Now, when you say we can give you that and it's real people, are you saying you have an actual panel and you're looking to see their actual journey?

Janeen Hazel: Yes. So we have our actual panel. These insights are one to one. So one consumer, can send them, we can look at their digital behavior, make sure they're the right target for you. What are they doing? Look at that activity, what are they doing online? And then we can serve them a survey to ask that why behind that behavior, which is really, really rich.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, because you're saying that's rich because it is even a comeback question, like, okay, great, this person did this, but because you actually own that panel and you're tracking who that was, you can let the brand come back and ask an additional question to that same person who had that journey?

Janeen Hazel: Yes, and in fact, a lot of times when we do a large customer journey project, we will pull the digital behavior first, make sure that this is the person they have activity that you're interested in, then we can go ask them some questions, the why behind, and then we'll even pull a smaller group out and do a little one-on-one, like a surf along with a moderator to see, okay, now tell me, you went here first, we see that you went here first through digital behavior, why did you do that? And get even more deep dive into what the behavior was.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, well I just think about how I shop for bathing suits and someone should probably ride along with me on that. I'm sure companies would be very interested. Janeen, always great to see you here in New York. Always a happening place, gotta find your smiling faces and your people that you know. Always love to talk to my little birds.

Priscilla McKinney: I'm here with Drew Jones with Vox Pop Me and you know I am hearing a lot of talk about people demoing your... So we can edit, don't worry about any of it. I'm here with Drew Jones with Vox Pop Me and a lot of people are talking about how they've piloted your actual program. So if they are going to book that meeting, what would they be expecting? What are they looking to see?

Drew Jones: You know, it's interesting because I think a lot of people come in expecting to see how AI is going to replace a human moderator. But that is not at all what we're trying to do. We're trying to allow human moderators to free up their time to focus on what they actually need to, the hard stuff, while the AI can manage all of the scalable conversations, the customer conversations, and be able to manage that piece and allow them to collect their qualitative data in a couple of days, while allowing the human moderators to focus on the long-term projects that are a little bit more niche, a little bit more in detail, you know, the B2B audiences and some of the healthcare audiences, for example, just the first ones that come to mind.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, so kind of keeping that human in the loop, what happens when things have been then moderated by the AI and then come to analysis? How does that really trained expert researcher then use this data?

Drew Jones: So when you have AI conversations with a moderator, they are first transcribed, so just like any other qualitative interview, you can go through the transcripts. The purpose of our AI on the backend is to help synthesize the data as fast as possible so that you're not spending weeks going back through all of the interviews, rewatching clips, trying to find the perfect clip. You can ask the AI to just simply pull it for you. Pull the quotes you're looking for, pull the clips you're looking for, create a nice show reel on the backend that you can send to stakeholders or to your end clients as well.

Priscilla McKinney: I love that. And when really the big picture, when we're talking about getting as close as you can to the voice of the consumer, that's powerful. So, okay, here we are in New York. We've been having fun. Now you've had some magic around this booth a little bit. Tell me about that fun activation.

Drew Jones: It's awesome because I even I've seen the tricks multiple times and I still love just watching everyone like even the people that are clearly not into the magic thing. They're here to participate in the tricks and their eyes just pop. They're like, my God, how did he do that?

Priscilla McKinney: Well, I love that connect. I hope when they actually then demo the AI moderation, then their eyes just pop and the magic happens too. So thanks for joining me. Appreciate you.

Drew Jones: Thank you very much.

Priscilla McKinney: I'm here with Diana Lim from Listen and listen, I actually got to talk to the guys on your team in Amsterdam. They had an amazing presentation and in fact, they cracked me up because they did the fastest demo ever given and they were like, I don't want to bore you so this is way it's going to be and they just rattled it off super, super fast and then got to the big presentation and I was laughing so hard and it was so like refreshing to have them like move on pretty quickly and. And actually get to the point. So it's very fun. But there are a lot of tools out here on the trade floor. And so what I'd like to know about Listen is, is it a tool that does a specific thing or can you do end-to-end research?

Diana Lim: So Listen is a end-to-end research platform and you can get qualitative insights in hours instead of months.

Priscilla McKinney: OK, that's already sounding good because ain't nobody got more time, right? We keep being asked to do more with less. So is that what most people are coming to you for or what are you hearing when people are coming to listen?

Diana Lim: Yeah, so people come in with a research question. Anybody who wants to talk to their customer and get insights is able to use listen. So we help people from UX, product feature questions, people in finance, people in CPG, all kinds of people. Everybody needs to talk to customers and that's why we're there to help.

Priscilla McKinney: I love it. So have you heard anything surprising or have anybody come up to your booth and kind of had a different question that you weren't expecting or has it been really kind of the same questions?

Diana Lim: We've gotten a lot of the same questions like what is the fastest turnaround time which is under 24 hours. Wow. And we've also gotten other use cases like in-person product feature testing and that is something that we support. So I think a lot of people see the AI moderator and they're like Do people actually want that? Having it fully digital. But what we've seen is that people are actually more open to AI and they're able to test things and then record it. So yeah, I think technology is the future and that's where we see Listen going.

Priscilla McKinney: OK, well some people know you all as Listen Labs and some people know Listen. But what's the website if they wanted to check it out?

Diana Lim: Listenlabs.ai.

Priscilla McKinney: Daniel Khomenko with IDR. You are an expert in B2B expert panels. People are trying to find these C-suite buyers and they struggle to do that and that's where you all come in. So tell me what you're hearing, why are people looking for these particular respondents in their surveys?

Daniel Khomenko: Yeah, absolutely. When you're a large brand looking to understand advertising spend versus digital, traditional social media or you're tech company looking to understand why your cloud services are lacking in market share, you want to talk to a C-suite decision maker who has the financial decision making that ultimately is making the choices that are either driving your business to gain market share or you're doing something wrong and losing market share. We provide you access to those guys.

Priscilla McKinney: Now I said survey but that's probably wrong because you provide qualitative and quantitative panel, correct?

Daniel Komenko: That's correct. So qualitative direct interviews with respondents. You can also do expert focus groups. We do expert surveys, online bulletin boards and online communities which are becoming more and more popular.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah, so people want to really understand not only what does someone want for a particular purchase but also maybe longevity like what would they like next, what's happening, right? So what are some of the interesting requests you're getting these days?

Daniel Komenko: Right now, I mean, semiconductors with AI is so hot. NVIDIA, four trillion, right? Everybody wants to know how long can it last, how far is it going to go? In Gen.AI right now, we want to hear from you, right? And so do our clients. That's a really big one. And then more and more high net worth individuals. You know, we're an expert network. We provide you access to C suites. But ultimately those people end up being high net worth individuals. Understanding why they're choosing Marriott over their competitors. Understanding why they're choosing Amex over MasterCard. Something we're seeing every single day and that's really increasing.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, so you are a New Yorker though, and here we are at Quirks New York. So people come to town, they do all kinds of interesting touristy things, but what do you think peace was to be seen or doing when they come to this awesome town?

Daniel Komenko: I mean, it's run to the ground, but you have to get a bagel and get some smoked salmon on it. Russ and Daughters is right around the corner here from the Javits Center. That's where I went to lunch today and I can't recommend it more. I love it.

Priscilla McKinney: Danny Farkas, I always love seeing you and know, Virtual Incentives is known in this industry for being amazing at engagement with respondents and we talk about how important respondents are to this industry, you really can't be understated. But what do you think is new and what's going on over at your place?

Danny Farkas: Yeah, you know, I feel like it's still business as usual. We're making sure that respondent experience is top of mind and we see ourselves very much as an engagement company and a partner to the space to make sure that the respondent experience end end is super great. I think what we're noticing and what we're learning about at this conference is that there's a leveling up or there's a shift, there's new technologies, there are new companies, there's many new faces while there's a lot of friends and, feels like friends and family every time we come to these conferences, there's, you know, there's new players, there's really innovative ideas that are happening and for us that means we're going to have to help enable the future of this industry and that means new products, new countries, it's easier to reach different parts of the world now and gain insights in a meaningful way so we have to make sure that we're there to support the industry the same way that we always have been.

Priscilla McKinney: Respondent and I'm gonna get the appropriate incentive in order to get the best quality but without really kind of polluting the system. So how do you guys make that balance? Well, you know, is there a secret sauce you can share?

Danny Farkas: Yeah, well it's always been a mission of ours to make sure that we have something meaningful for everyone everywhere. Now. That's a great mission statement, and easier said than done, but that's what we're up, you know, we're up for the task. And I think what that, you know, what that's meant is. Yeah, yeah, that's So what it's meant. So what that's meant is that we've had to partner closely with a lot of our partners in the space here for curating the right options, helping them really streamline the decision making of, all right, well, we have these complex audiences and it could be a number of different factors that play into the personas that you're trying to engage with and making sure that meaningful rewards are in front of them. And that's certainly going to change whether it's ages, whether it's geographies. So we're trying to really push and be at the forefront of all of that and help with the decision making and be a closer partner when folks are trying to reach those new audiences.

Priscilla McKinney: I love it. And I love how you guys have a mindset of just really taking care of that respondent. That's something we really need in this industry. So nice to see you here.

Danny Farkas: Always a pleasure, Priscilla.

Priscilla McKinney: Good catching up with Ava Arora here at Quirks and we just listened to an interesting presentation right up your alley, but you've been in different rooms, in different sessions. Has there been something surprising or inspiring for you? What have you learned?

Ava Arora: Thank you, thank you so much. Yeah, I think it's been interesting. I mean, I know in the past year or two we've been hearing a lot about AI and what does it mean. 10 years ago I remember Big Data was like, big discussion and now we've switched to AI but I think I find it fascinating because as researchers we all want to kind of make sure that we do generate impactful insights for our stakeholders but I feel that these sessions have been really helpful to kind of tie in and show us how to use AI and implement the benefits of AI in the right way, obviously, and blend it in with the insights that we are doing, call it a traditional research or whatever. We've still got a long way to go, But for now, think it was a, many sessions were really beneficial, that it was showing us how we could blend AI and the tools that they are available out there and incorporate them into our day-to-day life with our research. I think it was great, it's been great.

Priscilla McKinney: Well, you're from DirecTV and I am curious, without giving away any trade secrets, I am curious, what are the things the stakeholders are asking you for and what do you feel that either you're under pressure for or things that you're becoming more more interested in? You know, not just as it relates to AI, but you know, just everyday work that you're needing to get done.

Ava Arora: Well, I mean, obviously every industry has its own challenges and I feel that, you know, to answer your question, think what we hear that stakeholders are looking for is mainly just the latest insight. And things are moving so fast, especially in the streaming video world as well as other industries. I think the idea is to give them quick, meaningful, impactful data that it's valid, rather than waiting like the traditional research that used to take like two to three months to give them answers. They want, you know, on the go, quick, and we're really, role is to be their partner rather than be a researcher within the company, right?

Priscilla McKinney: So, love that, the partner, the idea of like, you know, you are under pressure, you're walking into rooms, the stakeholders are demanding the answers from you, but you see yourself as partner with them.

Ava Arora: Absolutely, absolutely. And I think it's really important to build that bond and kind of connections with the stakeholders. So that way they rely and they trust the data, the insights that we are delivering. Obviously, it's easier said than done. Yeah, I think that is definitely key.

Priscilla McKinney: That is so great. And I'm sure we'll end up in a couple of more sessions together.

Ava Arora: Absolutely. And it was lovely meeting you. So yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

Priscilla McKinney: Carlos Hevia from Multilingual Connections. Carlos is not a stranger to this podcast. You guys have actually sponsored this podcast many times and I'm so excited that you're doing it again. But I see you all over the world with market research and I am curious what you are hearing. What is different about culture and language as it applies to AI?

Carlos Hevia: Yeah, so the thing that has changed radically over the last year is that our clients come to us with a whole different set of questions and a whole different set of needs now. Because now that language, maybe not culture, but language is something that AI can handle pretty well, what people come to is further down the value chain kind of things. In other words, reporting and analysis, or further up the value change in design and that sort of thing. So they still need that cultural expertise, they still need the language expertise, but they need it in different parts of what they're doing now. Because the spot that we've always been in, is now being handled by AI.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, now we are in New York. So is there something, even though you come from Chicago and they're like one of the coolest cities, right? But you come to New York, is there something you love to do or you don't leave until you've done?

Carlos Hevia: You know, what I love to do when I'm in New York is just breathe in the energy because Chicago is great. It's a wonderful city. I mean, respectfully, our food's better. But there's nothing like the energy of walking down anywhere in New York. Know, it is, and I love it. I will sometimes just just go out on a walk to be in it, to soak it in. So that's the thing I like the most.

Priscilla McKinney: I'm not going to lie. I'm with you about Better Food in Chicago. And I think maybe you and I should confer in the podcast show notes. Let's list a few of our favorites, but also little known fact, you and your wife own a bakery in Chicago. So give us the name and where it is. It's a little outside of the city, but you know, for people following you and it going to be in Chicago coming up pretty soon with Insights Association. Okay. Where can we find your bakery?

Carlos Hevia: So I didn't know that the Multilingual Connections sponsors have with this type of a promo. I might get in trouble for this one. But yeah, we're located out in the western suburbs. If you grab the BNSF commuter line out to Westmont, Illinois, you just get off the train and we're there. We're right off the train station. Bakery Bakery is the name of the place. Best empanadas in all the western suburbs.

Priscilla McKinney: Well, I'm going to come and prove that myself. That sounds like an open invitation. Thanks for joining us.

Priscilla McKinney: Old friends are the best friends. Nice to see Cliff Kane here from EyeSee and I love talking shop with you around the world. Last time we I think we were in DC last time and we were in Amsterdam and we get to see each other all over the world. That's pretty awesome. But tell me a little bit about EyeSee. What are people thinking right off the bat that is just like 100 % what you do and what you guys do well?

Cliff Kane: Yeah, sure. Thanks, Priscilla. Great to see you again here and not so swell during New York. I think when people think about EyeSee, it is industry leading package shelf testing. Things used to be done in person years ago, I was a part of that. Now we can visualize any shelf, any environment, we have virtual stores, deeper packaging metrics, more behavioral metrics. So really heavy duty validation. I think we're the partner a lot of clients think about when they're making the final decision before launching things to market.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, but what do you do really well that people don't know and that you wish more people knew about EyeSee?

Cliff Kane: I think it's a great question. It's one level earlier than that, what we call Pack Screening Plus. So again, a decade ago, he's doing lots of in-person qualitative for design screening, flying all over the world. I think a lot changed post-COVID with budgets and timing. Think of ways of getting great behavioral insights using tools like MaxDiff, using our own internally developed predictive eye tracking for pack visibility, and some other cool behavioral techniques. And we're getting it at, frankly, pricing that looks like a DIY tool, timing similar. So it's a really neat solution I think that can help get clients from five or six designs down to two for a proper shelf test.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, well we're in New York this time, so anything fun you did this trip or is there something that you think, oh my gosh, people have to do this when they come to New York?

Cliff Kane: That's... Man, well easy for me, I'm just taking a train in the subway, right? So I avoided the travel drama, but no, I had a great dinner last night, obviously. Man, Central Park is always fun, right? I do think especially if you haven't been before, take a nice walk in the park, right? Yes, it's hot. Yes, it's a little steamy, but nothing like being out about some of the green space in New York.

Priscilla McKinney: Andrew Kawalek, haven't had you on Ponderings from the Perch before, but I am good friends with a lot of the aytm folk and especially all the women over at Women in Research. And so thank you also for supporting all the women in this industry. But I am curious, aytm, also known as Ask Your Target Market. So what is it that clients are coming to you specifically for? What is that differentiator that you all provide?

Andrew Kawalek: Yeah, it's a great question. I think the big thing with us is the flexible service model. Insights yesterday and with us we have the ability to do things yourself all the way to full service anywhere in between so that they can come to us with any need at any given time and know that they're gonna have the solution whether it's with our AI tools or the software itself or anything in between.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah okay I love that now we're in New York so is there something you love to do in New York that you just don't leave until you've done?

Andrew Kawalek: Well I walk everywhere. People joke about that, but I love to walk. Even here, when there's taxis and Ubers and subways everywhere, I just walk. Yesterday I walked 18 miles before I even knew it. Between meetings and at nighttime. I just, I can't sit still. I don't want to be in a subway. I don't want to be in an Uber. I just walk.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay. I'm a little, I'm a big walker too, but I'm kind of in shell shock right now. 18 miles is a long time. Was there something on your walk that you saw that was just kind of, you know, inspiring or surprising?

Andrew Kawalek: I saw everything. I saw Manhattan twice yesterday. Love it.